Selangor - Capabilities of Selangor - Natural Capabilities - Lawlessness
in Selangor - British Interference in Selangor - A Hopeful Outlook
Selangor is a small State lying between 2 degrees 34', and 3 degrees
42' N. Its coast-line is about one hundred and twenty miles in length.
Perak is its northern boundary, Sungei Ujong its southern, and some of
the small States of the Negri Sembilan and unexplored jungle and
mountains separate it from Pahang on the east. It is watered by the
Selangor, Klang and Langat rivers, which rise in the hills of its
eastern frontier. Its population is not accurately known, but the
result of an attempt to estimate it, made by the Resident in 1876, is
fifteen thousand Chinese and from two thousand to three thousand
Malays. Mr. Douglas, the late Resident, puts the Malay population at a
higher figure, and estimates the aboriginal population at one thousand,
but this is probably largely in excess of their actual numbers.
[*In offering this very slight sketch of Selangor to my readers as
prefatory to the letters which follow, I desire to express my
acknowledgments specially to a valuable paper on "Surveys and
Explorations of the Native States of the Malay Peninsula," by Mr. Daly,
Superintendent of Public Works and Surveys, Selangor, read before the
Royal Geographical Society on May 8, 1882. I have also made use of a
brief account of the Native Malay States by Mr. Swettenham, Assistant
Colonial Secretary to the Straits Settlements Government, published in
the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and of
"Our Malay Conquests" by Sir P. Benson Maxwell, late Chief Justice of
the Straits Settlements.]
The wealth of Selangor lies in its apparently inexhaustible tin mines.
The range of hills which forms the backbone of the Malay Peninsula
rises in places to a height of seven thousand feet, and it is from this
range that the alluvial detritus is washed down, beneath which is
deposited the layer of ore or wash, which varies from four inches to
ten feet in thickness. The supply of this ore is apparently
inexhaustible, but no veins have as yet been found. The mine of
Ampagnan only, near Kwala Lumpor, the capital, gives employment to over
one thousand Chinamen, and each can extract in a year one thousand
pounds weight of white smelted tin valued at 35 pounds sterling. This
mineral wealth is the magnet which, according as the price of tin is
higher or lower, attracts into Selangor more or fewer Chinamen. The
chief source of the revenue of the State has been the export duty on
tin.
The low lands on the coast are fringed with mangroves, which thrive in
blue mud and heavy clays, and these lands, when drained, are well
adapted for sugar. Wet rice grows well in the swampy valleys which
separate the minor ranges, and dry rice on the rises; while tapioca,
tobacco, pepper and gambier thrive on the medium heights. The sago palm
flourishes on wet lands. The high hills are covered with primeval
forests, and the Malays have neither settlements nor plantations upon
them. It is believed that these hills, at a height of from two thousand
five hundred to three thousand five hundred feet, are admirably adapted
for the growth of Arabian coffee, cinchona and tea; and some Ceylon
coffee planters are expecting an era of success in Selangor. At
present, however, the necessary labor is not available. The soil in the
interior on the mountain slopes consists of a light red and yellow
clay, the product of a comparatively recent rock decomposition, covered
with vegetable mould from eight to twelve inches thick. There are no
droughts, and the rainfall, distributed pretty fairly over the year,
averages about one hundred and thirty inches annually. The climate is
remarkably healthy, and diseases of locality are unknown. Land can be
purchased for eight shillings per acre on terms of deferred payments.
One curious feature of Selangor, as of Perak, is the occurrence of
isolated hills of limestone varying from eighty to one thousand feet in
height. At Batu there are magnificent limestone caves, richly adorned
with stalactites and stalagmites. The dome of one cavern is three
hundred and fifty-five feet from floor to roof. An important fact
connected with these caverns is that they contain thousands of tons of
bats' manure, which may be as valuable as guano to future planters.
Between the heavy clays and blue mud of the mangrove swamps and the
granite and sandstone of the mountain ranges, the undulating rises are
mainly composed of red clay, sandstones, shales, and granitic and
feldspathic rocks, with extensive deposits of laterite in red clays on
the surface. In the valleys along the rivers the soil consists of rich
alluvial deposits.
Undoubtedly Selangor has great capabilities, and if the difficulties of
the labor question can be satisfactorily disposed of, it is likely that
the new offer of leases for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, subject
to improvement clauses, will attract a number of planters to its
fertile soil and wholesome climate. Selangor includes three large
districts, each on a considerable river of its own - Selangor, Klang,
and Langat.
The Sultan was actually, as he is now nominally, supreme, but the story
of disturbances under this government is a very old one, internal
strife having been the normal condition of the State ever since
Europeans have been acquainted with it. It seems to have been an
undoubted fact that its rivers and island channels were the resort of
pirates, and that its Rajahs devoted themselves with much success to
harrying small vessels trading in the Straits of Malacca.
The name of this State is not found in the earlier Malayan records.
Negri Calang, or the land of tin, was the designation of this part of
the peninsula, and this depopulated region was formerly a flourishing
dependency under the Malay sovereigns of Malacca. The population, such
as it is, is chiefly composed of the descendants of a colony of Bugis
from Goa in the Celebes, who settled in Selangor at the beginning of
the eighteenth century under a Goa chief, who was succeeded by Sultan
Ibrahim, an intense hater and sturdy opponent of the Dutch.
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